More to the Story
by Terp4Life
Summary: Rich Dotcom has been apprehended again, and once again he'll only talk to Jane and Kurt. This time, however, he has some questions of his own for them before he tells them anything. Set sometime (but not too far) after ep205.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Jane or Kurt or Rich Dotcom or Blindspot. Writing about them is simply the outlet for my obsession.**

 _A/N: The other day MonkeyPajamas and I were talking about Blindspot - as we are 99% of the time - and the upcoming Rich Dotcom episode came up in conversation. I said that I just wanted him to yell at Jane and Kurt for not having gotten together since they last time he saw them, in 118, when he gave Kurt such a hard time about being with Allie and not Jane. Just like that, the idea lodged itself in my brain and refused to leave. And so, here you have the product of that._

What had started out as a pretty routine day – as routine as any day at the FBI could be – had taken a turn for the much less routine when Kurt had received a mid-morning phone call from the FBI Director. He'd told Kurt that Rich Dotcom had been apprehended, _again_ , and that Dotcom was refusing to speak to anyone except himself and Jane, _again_.

Kurt sighed as he hung up the phone, taking a minute to scrub his hands tiredly across his face. Things with Jane were… strained, at the absolute best. They'd been downright hostile with each other when she'd first come back in with them, less than willingly, and while the ice seemed to be melting ever so slowly between them, there had been a few… _setbacks_. Things like Jane overhearing his conversation with Zapata, when he'd said he didn't like being in the same room with her. Or… that little matter of Allie being pregnant with his child.

He had honestly expected a bigger reaction from Jane to that news… though he'd chickened out and had never told her about it himself, only to have Allie blurt it out in the middle of a firefight on a mission gone wrong, when they were all on coms at the same time. Later, when they'd talked in the locker room, Jane had smiled and congratulated him, and he'd felt himself freeze up.

It was stupid and cliché, he knew, but he really didn't know what to say, didn't know how to talk to her about that. He hadn't wanted to talk to Jane about Allie back when they'd just been _dating_ , and that had been infinitely less complicated. Now? Now it was just… a mess.

Because he had realized that he still knew Jane, despite what he had claimed to her face not too long ago, he had a feeling that the smile he saw wasn't how she really felt about it. Not that they'd been in any kind of relationship, of course, but… it was _Jane._ The problem was, he still just didn't know what to say to her. Or, maybe he was just to scared to try. Had he moved past everything that had happened, or was it all now just too tangled up into a knot of emotions that neither of them could navigate? He didn't know anymore. When it came to Jane, he was the first to admit that he just didn't know.

So he'd done the only thing he could do then, on orders from the Director. He'd stood up from his chair and gone in search of Jane. He found her alone in a conference room, looking through a box of files. She seemed to spend a lot of time that way since she'd been back – alone. It wasn't hard to understand, after all. Their team that had once been so close had been rocked by everything that had happened. Zapata had told Jane to her face that she didn't want her in the field with them, the day that Weller had instructed each of them that they needed to start acting like a team and stop working against each other. He'd reiterated that both Jane and Nas were now part of their team, at least while they took down Sandstorm, and they all needed to get along.

He paused outside the door of the conference room, looking in through the glass at Jane, who sat on the far side of the table, facing the door, but was looking down at whatever she was reading. As soon as he pushed the door open, she looked up, her face unreadable. This was Jane's default look most of the time now. He only saw flashes of the Jane that he remembered, which was both frustrating and confusing. He didn't know which one was the "real" Jane, despite how much he wanted to trust her, without even realizing it.

There was no sound in the room for a few seconds, until Kurt finally remembered that he was there to tell her about their unexpected joint interrogation.

"I just got a call from the Director. Rich Dotcom has been picked up again, and he won't talk to anyone but us," he announced, looking at her with cool detachment. "You and me," he added, realizing only too late that that part was probably unnecessary.

"Okay," she said simply, closing the file in front of her. "Do you need me now?" He nodded, and she stood up, replaced the files she'd been going through in the box and put the top on it. "I need to return these files," she said, picking up the box. "I'll meet you by the elevator?" Again, he simply nodded, holding the door open for her since both of her hands were full.

"Thanks," she said quietly, looking at him over her shoulder as she walked past him. He gave one short nod of acknowledgement, then turned and walked the other direction down the hall. She sighed and watched him walk away for a few seconds, allowing herself to drop her unreadable expression as she did.

 _Stop it_ , she told herself, _you're only making it worse._ With a heavy sigh, she walked the opposite way down the hall to return the files to the room from which she had taken them, attempting to steel herself to not only work in close proximity with Kurt for however long this took, but to deal with Rich Dotcom. The last time she'd seen him, while he was a pain in the ass who'd put their lives in danger and then escaped, she'd felt the slightest bit of affection for him. In his own twisted way, Dotcom had developed a soft spot for herself and Weller, which she didn't understand. They last time they'd seen him, he'd told her to confess to Kurt how she felt about him – not that she'd ever _told_ Dotcom how she'd felt about Kurt. She got the feeling that this time, dealing him was going to be infinitely harder.

 _No other choice_ , she reminded herself. Nas had made certain to remind her of that. She tried to swallow the bitterness she felt rise inside her at the unfairness of _all of it_ as she walked back towards the elevator to meet up with Kurt.

A few minutes later, they stood beside each other awkwardly in the elevator, several feet apart. It wasn't often that they ended up alone anywhere together these days, much less in an elevator… for a split second, she remembered standing in that elevator with him, all dressed up for their first Rich Dotcom party, when he'd slipped a wedding ring onto her finger. She squelched the image, pushing it from her mind just as fast as it appeared, but she couldn't help feeling for that split second that she'd been punched in the stomach. All she could do was hope that he hadn't seen it. She closed her eyes and counted to twenty – this time in Russian, just for variety.

 _You can do this,_ she told herself.

After all, things between them had been improving, though very slowly, of late, and after Jane had helped protect Allie on the Irish mob case, Kurt had seemed less hostile, less angry, slightly softer towards her. It was something, she reminded herself from time to time.

Jane could feel the tension in the air, and knew that Kurt was doing everything in his power not to look at her, even without looking in his direction. They'd always had a sixth sense when it came to the other, and unfortunately that connection remained despite their now extremely uncomfortable work relationship. She wished so badly that she didn't feel the connection, because the ache in her chest when she was around him was intense some days, despite her best efforts to resist it.

Or, that is, the ache in her chest had _been_ intense until that fateful moment when Allie had blurted out that she was pregnant, and that the baby was Kurt's. Jane was an expert at masking her feelings by now. At steeling herself against emotional outbursts, and locking her feelings away and telling herself that they meant nothing. That she _felt_ nothing. After all, she remembered her training. Pain was a dream.

And yet, she would gladly have endured another three months in CIA custody – okay, maybe not _gladly_ , but she would have endured it – if it meant that she could unhear those words. If some other form of additional torture could take back the _reality_ that those words represented. That Allie was pregnant with Kurt's child. In some ways, the four words that Allie had uttered had hurt her more than any physical pain she had ever been forced to endure. But because the new Jane had already become painfully accustomed to the idea that Kurt wanted nothing to do with her, she was able to go on and barely flinch.

Only one person knew her well enough that he would have seen the flash of hurt on her face for the split second before she had her mask in place again. But Kurt hadn't been there, of course. No, he hadn't even bothered to tell her himself. Instead, she'd found out from Allie in the middle of a gunfight.

 _It's better,_ she told herself, _because it's harder to feel what's left of your world crashing down on your head when you're worried about being shot, or about protecting three other people from being shot. Or… four people, actually…_ For just a second a scowl crossed her face as she cursed the voice in her head for being so technically correct. Yes, the fourth person was the baby. The thought stung, as it did every time, but she pushed it roughly from her mind.

 _No_ , she thought urgently. _**No**_.

The elevator dinged as they reached their floor, and Kurt paused, putting his hand over the door to stop it from closing as he waited for her to go out first. She walked by him stiffly, attempting to put something that resembled a smile on her face. _I can do this_ , she told herself.

Within a few seconds he was beside her again, both of them looking ahead down the empty hallway as they walked, more space between them than there would have been if the two people walking beside each other had been anyone else. It was painful, the awkwardness between them, and she wondered how long it would be like this… if it would _always_ be like this. After all, he'd made it clear that he didn't trust her… and yet his actions sometimes said otherwise.

It was exhausting, all the second guessing. It was all she could do to pretend to smile around him, and to tell herself that she was happy for him. _Of course_ she was happy for him, after all. It was just so damn… hard.

They reached the door to the interrogation room where Rich Dotcom was being held, and Kurt reached for the handle. Pausing before pulling the door open, he glanced at her for what may have been the first time since they'd spoken in the conference room. He realized only then that he hadn't, since then, looked her in the face, and because he knew her so well, he could also easily read the forced composure he saw there. It matched how he felt, and he wondered if it was as obvious to her as hers was to him. But there was no time for that now.

"Ready?" he asked. She nodded stiffly, keeping her expression serious and averting her eyes from him after only a few seconds. Sighing at what a mess things had become between them, he pulled the door open, holding it as she walked through and pulling it closed behind them. There had to be a way to fix things between them, at least to make them not so painfully awkward, he just had to figure out what that way was… but that wasn't something they could do just then.

They walked forward to the table, to which Rich Dotcom was handcuffed. They both glared at him, which was a stark contrast to the face of the convict in front of them. Dotcom's face, on the other hand, lit up as soon as he saw them.

"Stubbles! Jane!" he cried, almost gleefully, attempting to stand up in his excitement, before remembering that he was handcuffed to the table. He sat down again quickly, but looked at them without any less excitement. "You _came_! I knew you would. How _are_ you guys? What's up?" Glancing excitedly from one of them to the other, his face changed from gleeful to suspicious in a matter of seconds.

"We're not here to talk about us," Kurt replied shortly. "We need to ask you about—"

"WAIT!" Rich yelled suddenly, cutting Kurt off and slapping his hands down on the table. "I'm not going to talk about _anything_ until you guys explain to me what's going on here." His eyes darted from one of them to the other with a mixture of accusation and worry.

"What are you _talking_ about?" Jane asked, already frustrated.

Kurt scowled at him, growling, "You're not really in a position to be asking _us_ questions."

"Hey now! Wait _just_ a minute!" Dotcom replied empathically. "This isn't my first rodeo, Angry. I do know something about how this process works. And I _know_ that you need the information I have. All I want is for you to tell me what in the world is going on between the two of you. Huh? The vibe here is… well it's _way_ worse than it was the last time I saw you guys, and that's really saying something."

Almost as though he was trying to play 'good cop, bad cop' all by himself, Dotcom's voice suddenly softened, and he looked at them with compassion. "You guys, _come on_. You're so clearly meant to be together. What _happened_?"

He stared from one of them to the other, noting with interest that Jane looked away, while Kurt continued to glare at him, the look on his face even more hostile than it had been a minute before. He actually looked like he might explode with rage, in fact.

Dotcom shrugged his shoulders, adding, "Alright fine, have it your way. But I'm not saying anything until you talk to me." After only a short pause, he said imploringly, "You guys, _come on_! I want to _help_ you!"

Looking back and forth at them for a few seconds, he decided to focus on Jane. She was clearly going to be the more reasonable one of the two. "Jane, did you take my advice?"

She knew exactly what he was talking about, as much as she hated to say it, and once again she heard the last words he'd spoken to her at their last meeting bouncing around in her head.

" _Jane, listen to me. Life is short. Follow your heart. Tell Weller how you feel."_

She'd actually considered doing just that more times than she cared to admit, agonized over the decision, if she was being honest with herself, and yet… It just hadn't been possible. No, that wasn't true. It _had_ been possible, but she'd been under the mistaken assumption that the way she was going about things – lying to the team in order to protect them – had been better than just coming out with the truth. It was only now that she could see just how very wrong she had been, and that having to work with Kurt everyday against Sandstorm, having him despise her, was her very real punishment.

Kurt actually glanced in her direction then, and she wondered if he knew what advice to which Dotcom was referring. She imagined that he probably did. He'd been there too, after all. When it came to Jane, Kurt didn't seem to forget much – except, of course, for the fact that he'd once told her that she was a good person. _That_ he seemed to have forgotten completely – not that she could blame him, exactly, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

Deciding that it was a harmless enough question in the grand scheme of things, especially if it meant moving the interrogation forward, Jane swallowed her annoyance at Dotcom and took the chance of answering him. "No," she said simply, looking him in the eyes.

"Okay! Now we're gettingsomewhere!" the convict cried triumphantly. Then, again almost seeming to adopt a completely separate personality from the one he'd just used, he looked at her sternly and asked, "Why _not_?"

"What do _you_ know about how she felt the last time we saw you?" Kurt demanded, suddenly angry. He leaned forward and pointed a finger at Dotcom accusingly. For some reason this line of questioning was getting under his skin quickly, despite the fact that he normally prided himself on being calm and in control of these type of situations. There was something about Rich Dotcom that was getting to him, and _fast…_ and he was pretty sure he knew what it was.

 _It's because he seems to always see the truth about the two of you,_ the voice in his head told him matter-of-factly. _You two dance around it, but somehow, no matter that you didn't tell him anything, he just knew. And for some reason he likes you, despite the fact that he's a criminal and you're a fed. He thinks he's helping you._ This thought just pissed Kurt of even more.

Dotcom raised his hands in the air in surrender, at least as far off the table as his handcuffs would allow him to, as if to prove his innocence. "Hey, Angry, I'm sorry, but it was pretty obvious how you guys felt about each other. I mean then again, I _am_ an especially good judge of character and reader of body language… it's my _favorite_ language, if you know what I mean…" He stopped and winked at them dramatically, at which Jane rolled her eyes and Kurt just looked as though he was going to punch him in the face.

"Anyway," Dotcom said, realizing that he was getting off track and turning back to Jane, "so you didn't tell him how you felt. Okay, I'm sure you had your reasons… _It's complicated_ , and all that…" Then, seemingly unconcerned by Kurt's anger, he turned to look at the FBI agent. "So, Stubbles, please tell me that you're not still with, uh… that US Marshal… the angry one? No, right?"

Jane wondered how long Kurt was going to take this before he'd walk out, which judging from the look on his face, was going to be very soon. As relieved as she was that this question wasn't aimed at her, she almost wished that it _was,_ because she was fairly sure that she was better able to deal with it than Kurt was just then – especially now that Dotcom was asking about Allie.

Kurt paused, taking a deep breath, and then, as if he was trying to crush Dotcom with the force of his glare alone, he allowed himself one word for the convict. " _No_."

Dotcom looked at him with renewed delight, clapping his hands together. "See, was that so hard? Now we're making progress…" He looked at Kurt for a few seconds, studying his face, then glanced back at Jane, noticing the look of anguish on hers for a split second before her guard went back up. "So, you're not together any more… but… 'Cause I feel like there's a 'but' here, and not the good kind, ya know?"

Without noticing, Jane and Kurt both rolled their eyes at Dotcom's joke, which did not escape his attention. "Ha! There! Did you see that? No, of course you didn't! That was the best thing right there! You two both rolled your eyes at me _at the same time_. That was…" He trailed off, looking at the two of them sitting with their arms crossed, facing towards him but away from each other. There was _so much_ baggage between these two, it was painfully obvious.

"Okay, so there's a 'but' here, and it's… WAIT!" Dotcom looked at Kurt, his eyes first widening in understanding and then immediately narrowing accusingly. "No… no no no no no no! _Please_ tell me you didn't get her pregnant!" Fire flared in Kurt's eyes for a second, and then was gone just as fast, as he tucked the emotion away.

Dotcom's eyes went to Jane, who was now staring at the floor. These two said _so much_ with their body language, it was a wonder they could be FBI agents – or consultants, or whatever – at all. He couldn't figure out why all this wasn't obvious to anyone else – other than the fact that, of course, he was _far_ smarter than most people, of course.

"Stubbles! Seriously?" Dotcom wailed in honest disappointment. "How _could_ you…?" For a second,

Rich looked and sounded very much like a furious father, angry with one of his children. He clenched his hands in fists in front of him, taking a deep breath and attempting to calm down. "You know… you know what a big deal this is, don't you?"

Kurt looked back at him coldly. If he could have either frozen Dotcom with his gaze alone, or alternatively set him on fire the same way – or even both, for that matter – this would have been the time that he would have done it. " _Of course it's a big fucking deal,"_ Kurt said slowly, in a voice so low and so angry it seemed to drip with rage. He wasn't convinced that he wouldn't punch Dotcom in a matter of the next five seconds, though he told himself that he absolutely had to avoid doing so at all costs.

"No, _no_ , not like that. I mean, okay, yes, sure, it's a big deal to what's her name, obviously," Dotcom continued, rolling his eyes in frustration and waving his hand dismissively, as if he could somehow push the subject of Allie farther away by doing so. "But I'm talking about _you guys_."

"That doesn't have anything to do with us," Jane suddenly piped up. She had decided that this interrogation couldn't get much _worse_ , after all, and Dotcom didn't seem willing to focus on anything else until he felt like he had gotten somewhere. Besides, the team really seemed to know everything _else_ about her, what was a little more information? Never mind that her feelings about Kurt were just about the _only_ thing that she'd managed to get away without admitting to in front of everyone on the team, even if she was pretty sure that they all probably knew it already, anyway. So why not? It's not as though she had something left to _lose_.

"Oh no?" Dotcom asked, his attention once again on Jane.

"No," she replied. "There was never anything between us. No chance for us. It just…" She'd been on the verge of actually elaborating, and it wasn't that she'd changed her mind. She simply found that suddenly, she couldn't finish her sentence. Of all of the secrets inside her that she'd already confessed in technicolor detail, anything dealing with Kurt was locked up tight. It was simply too hard.

"Will one of you just tell me what the hell happened?" Dotcom demanded, now getting frustrated with both of them. "It _cannot_ be that bad, can it? What was it? Because the two of you, you are so clearly meant to be together, and so obviously unhappy right now, I just can't stand it! I want to _help you_ , you guys!" Dotcom was suddenly almost begging them to cooperate.

He'd hit the nose on the head so squarely, it had taken Jane's breath away. Being around this clearly brilliant but slightly insane criminal made her think back to their two previous encounters with him, but especially strongly to the first time they met him. Remembering how things had felt between the two of them at the party they had infiltrated, undercover as man and wife, the way he had looked into her eyes, and now sitting here beside him and having to _stop herself_ from remembering because her heart threatened to burst… it felt like someone dragging a blade slowly and painfully across her heart. She couldn't do this much longer, she knew. Apparently the lesson that 'pain is a dream' only went so far, and it did not apply to pain that involved Kurt Weller.

Kurt looked over when he saw movement from beside him. Jane had leaned forward, her elbows now against her knees for support, her forehead resting on her hands. He couldn't deny that Dotcom was getting to him, and he grudgingly admitted to himself that this probably wasn't easy for Jane, either. Yes, he could almost see this from Dotcom's twisted perspective. Maybe to him, things seemed as simple as he was making them sound. Obviously that wasn't the reality of the situation, but he conceded to himself that he was going to have to appease the man, no matter how deranged he seemed, if he was going to get anywhere with his own interrogation.

"Not that bad, huh? Okay, well try this one on for size. _She_ ," he pointed at Jane without looking at her, "claimed to be my childhood best friend, who had gone missing when I was ten years old. Except that, it turned out, my father had _murdered_ that girl twenty five years ago. Instead, we came to find out that _she_ ," he inclined his head toward Jane and continued, "was an operative from a terrorist organization who'd had her memory wiped and been sent to infiltrate the FBI as a Trojan Horse. She framed my boss for murder and then got her _killed_. Needless to say, she got in a little bit of trouble, and needless to say, there's nothing going on with us, nor is there _going to be_ anything going on with us. _Satisfied_?" He glared at Dotcom, hostility oozing out of every pore in his body.

"Holy shit," Dotcom said, his eyes wider than they'd ever seen them. "That's not… that can't be…" His head was spinning. This was _not_ what he had expected when he'd started prodding them for information, after all. He looked at Jane, who was still looking down miserably, away from them. "Hey, Jane, talk to me. Because I know there's more to the story than just that. I _know_ it."

She finally looked up at this criminal who seemed so determined to play relationship counselor between the two of them, her eyes full of sadness – what was the point of trying to hide it, anyway? "They wiped my memory. I didn't know _who_ I was, and they planted DNA that made everyone believe I was her. _They_ told me I was her. Then when the people I was allegedly working with contacted me, they threatened to kill him," she motioned at Kurt, then continued, "if I didn't do what they wanted. I thought that I was protecting him, and the whole team. I'd already seen them kill their _own_ people, so I knew they wouldn't hesitate." She took a deep breath, and then added quietly, "It seemed like it was better if he was alive and hated me than if he was dead. But… I should've told them."

Jane hung her head, not sure why she was going along with this, telling Dotcom all of their business. Still, everyone else who was listening in had heard it before, so really she couldn't see the harm at this point.

Dotcom once again looked shocked. "Holy shit," he said again. "So now… what? You just bring her around with you? Or she's in jail? Or what?" He had to hand it to these two, this was even more interesting than he'd expected.

"She's working undercover with her former organization to get information about what they're planning," Kurt said in annoyance. "Until we have enough to bring them down. After that…" He shrugged. He really didn't know what would happen after that, and he suddenly realized he didn't want to think about it, either.

Shaking his head to clear out all of the extraneous information he'd just been given, Dotcom looked from one of them to the other once again. "Guys, here's the thing," he said, "okay, there's some… _baggage_ here between you two…" Jane and Kurt both looked at him as if he was crazy, and he held up his hands, palms out, to try to stall them from blocking out what he was saying. "Wait! Wait a second. Just listen. You two are like, my biggest challenge to date. I've done _all kinds_ of things," he paused, considering his words and deciding that this wasn't the _best_ time and place to give examples, then continued.

"But you two, you…" He sighed at them in exasperation as they both stared at him defiantly. " _Despite_ everything you just told me, there are no two people who belong together more than you do," he told them flat out. "It's so glaringly obvious. And I get why you have some… trust issues… but," he turned to look Kurt in the eyes, "can you not see that protecting you was even more important to her than what you _thought_ about her? She just said it herself – that having you hate her was okay if the alternative was having you dead. That's some serious, heavy duty devotion right there."

Then he turned to look at Jane. "You, my little flower… this has totally sucked for you. I'm sure I don't even know the half of it, do I? Am I right?" He took her silence and lack of reaction for agreement, and continued. "You have every right to be angry, too, but cut the guy some slack, okay? He's doing his best. He wants to forgive you, I can tell. He just… doesn't know how."

She tried to block out Dotcom's words, but somehow she simply couldn't. He gave her hope where hers had died, right around the time that she'd found out that Allie was pregnant, and at that moment she both loved and hated him for that. Having hope meant more disappointment, and she wasn't sure she could handle that, on top of everything else.

Dotcom turned back to Kurt. "I'm guessing that Lady Tommy Lee Jones eventually figured out how you felt about my angel over here," he pointed with both hands to Jane, but kept his eyes focused on Weller. "And that she ended things, not knowing that she was pregnant?" Kurt simply rolled his eyes. "Damn, I'm good!" Dotcom exclaimed with a grin that was anything but modest.

"And so now she," he motioned again toward Jane, "is now not only public enemy number one in your book, but she has to be tortured with the knowledge that _the other one_ is having your baby. Which, I'm guessing, was _not_ something that was part of the plan…" Again, Kurt tried to crush Dotcom with his glare alone.

"Okay, so kids, here's the thing," Dotcom said slowly and patiently, as if he was talking to three year olds. "You guys love each other. It's not really hard to see, at least as far as I'm concerned. And okay, there's a few kinks to be worked out…"

He glanced from one of them to the other a few times, watching their frustrated reactions and nodding to himself as if this was all just part of his plan. "But the thing is – and I've tried to be subtle about it in the past, but that hasn't worked. You guys need the sledgehammer approach, clearly, so here it is. You guys are meant to be together. The sooner you stop fighting it and just admit it, the better it will be for both of you. Because really, tell me that's not what you want, deep down."

Dotcom focused first on Jane, who looked away immediately. She hated that he could see through both of them so easily, and simplify their situation to make it sound like they were just acting like stubborn children. She hated _him_ for the fact that he was right. It _was_ what she wanted, what she had always wanted. But she also knew that she didn't have the luxury of _getting_ what she wanted.

Satisfied that he'd made his point with Jane, Dotcom looked at Kurt. He was the more challenging one of the pair, and always had been. This guy had himself wrapped up so tightly in his emotions, it was a wonder he didn't strangle himself. _Poor guy_ , he thought. _I wish he would just listen to me for once._

"So?" Dotcom asked, leaning forward anxiously. "What do you say? You're going to at least think about what I'm saying, right? And then the next time we're all here like this, you can tell me how it went?"

"Don't get your hopes up," Kurt muttered, just hoping that they'd finally said enough to satisfy this criminal's strange curiosity with their personal lives and that they could move on to the actual interrogation, the thing they were there for in the first place.

"I'll take that as a yes," Dotcom replied happily, then looked at Jane. The woman was drop dead gorgeous, but that wasn't what he loved most about her. No, Dotcom's favorite thing about Jane was her eyes. She had the most expressive eyes he'd ever seen in his life. He supposed that it was lucky for her that he wasn't working for whatever terrorist organization it was that she had infiltrated, because her eyes would've outed her to him in a second. But he had nothing but admiration for her, he always had, and there was nothing he wouldn't do to try to help her – as strange as that may be, considering that they were on two different sides of the law.

So when Jane just stared at him with those eyes of hers, so clearly, obviously in pain at having had to talk about all of this, despite the fact that she was _so damn good_ at keeping it bottled up inside her, Dotcom knew that he'd gotten through to her as well, maybe even more so. If he could have, he would have hugged her, even knowing that she probably would've kicked his ass for it.

"And… I'll take that as a yes, as well, my love," he said to Jane. She looked at him in confusion for a few seconds, since she hadn't actually said anything, before shaking her head at him.

 _This guy is crazy_ , she thought to herself… _though he does make a lot of sense…_

"Alright, well, I know that our time is precious here, and I've been rudely hogging the conversation, so go ahead… what do _you_ want to know?" Dotcom asked, finally satisfied that he'd at least gotten the ball rolling for his favorite feds. Jane and Kurt both breathed a sigh of relief, launching into the questions they'd come there to ask in the first place, hoping that this strange pseudo-therapy session had been worth whatever he was going to tell them.

XXX

Two hours later, they were finally finished interrogating him. The two of them left the room together, Kurt latching the door behind them. Dotcom was being charged and would be sent back to jail, though Kurt had the nagging feeling that, as smart as he was, he'd find some way to spring himself free again. For the moment, however, he was in custody.

Jane fell behind as soon as they were out of the room, trailing him down the hall, silently, and at some point without his noticing, she either turned a corner and took a different route, or maybe ducked into a bathroom… he didn't know where she disappeared to, only that when he finally turned around to say something to her – though he hadn't even known _what_ it was that he wanted to say to her – she just wasn't there. He sighed heavily and headed for his office. There was no shortage of work to be done, as usual.

Many hours later, when the building was nearly empty, Kurt headed for the elevator, finally done for the day. It had been a long and exhausting one, and that 'therapy session' with Rich Dotcom hadn't helped at all. While he was working, he could keep his mind from going back there, but as soon as he let himself relax even a little, it was all there again, swirling in his head and echoing in his ears. He got into the elevator and pushed the button, heading for the locker room, ready to go home to try to put the day behind him.

When the elevator stopped, he didn't immediately notice that it had only gone one floor, and that it wasn't his destination. He moved forward without thinking or looking, and nearly ran straight into Jane, who was getting into the elevator. Surprised, he mumbled, "Sorry," and stepped all the way back to the far corner, giving her much more space than was necessary. The truth was that after their joint interrogation earlier that day, things between them were even _more_ awkward – as if they hadn't _already_ been terribly strained.

After Kurt's "sorry," they didn't say another word to each other in the elevator, just exchanged uncomfortable glances when the other wasn't looking. When the doors finally opened, they discovered that they were both headed for the locker room, spending just long enough there to get their things before they left for the day. Again, there was uncomfortable silence between them.

Less than two minutes after they'd walked in, Kurt heard Jane's locker slam nearby and suddenly knew that he needed to say something before he missed yet _another_ chance.

"Jane," he said quickly, "wait." She turned around and walked toward him, her face a mask of questions that he didn't think he could answer. Still, he told himself that he had to try. "Let's go somewhere and talk. Please?"

"Okay," she said, the hardness of her features softening slightly, and suddenly she looked more like the Jane she had once been to him. He hated to admit it, but he missed that Jane. It was even harder to admit to himself that she was _still_ that Jane, despite everything.

They left the locker room together without another word, not walking too close to each other, but not as far apart as they had been either. Maybe it wasn't what Rich Dotcom would have considered fast enough progress, but it was a start, at least.


End file.
